


The Adventure Of The Zinc Filings (1900)

by Cerdic519



Series: Elementary 221B [185]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Detectives, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Butt Plugs, Cock Rings, Destiel - Freeform, Diplomacy, F/M, Gay Sex, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Money, Science, Spice, Untold Cases of Sherlock Holmes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-09 08:01:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11664957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerdic519/pseuds/Cerdic519
Summary: A minor case that could have had some major repercussions had it been mis-handled. Sherlock travels to the East End, where an untimely visitor has caused 'complications'.





	The Adventure Of The Zinc Filings (1900)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ginger_angel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ginger_angel/gifts).



> Mentioned elsewhere as ‘the coiner captured when Sherlock detected zinc and iron filings in his cuffs’. Note that the cuffs in this story were obviously work rather than dress ones.

It was one of many curious coincidences that a case involving forged notes was so swiftly followed by one concerning false coin. And despite only an oblique reference to this case in my first collected works of Sherlock's achievements, the idea that something as minuscule as a zinc filing might prove decisive in resolving a case seems to have aroused the interest of a surprising number of people. But then, those people choose to read _my_ books, so clearly they have excellent taste. 

I can just _hear_ someone who is not getting laid any time soon (all right, or doing any laying!) doing an epic eye-roll in the next room. Bastard!

I recall that I had been feeling particularly pleased with myself as I returned to Baker Street that fine April morn. My latest book of Sherlock’s cases was outselling even the most optimistic predictions of my publisher, and I had come fresh from spending part of my hard-earned gains. Well, writing was hard work, contrary to what many people thought. And there was a most useful private shop just off Baker Street, called rather quaintly “That Shop”, whose recent advent had made our nightly encounters even more interesting as of late. Perhaps tonight we might even......

Damnation! My good mood evaporated like the morning dew when I recognized the carriage of Mr. Bacchus Holmes parked outside our house. I might have known that our long run without his baleful presence could not last. And why would Sherlock still not allow me to install man-traps before the lounge-lizard called?

Fortunately, only seconds later the pain in the nether regions himself hurried of the front door, and the vehicle sped away as I approached. I braced myself internally; Sherlock endured his elder brother’s baleful presence only as a necessary evil in his service to the country, but he did not like it. And it would had to have been serious for the scoundrel to be here. I wondered just how ruffled my angel would be as a result.  
   
+~+~+  
   
Very ruffled, as things turned out. I was barely through the door before he was on me, and I noticed with some concern that he was again trying to scent me. He usually only did that when he was upset – he always felt it was demeaning to another man, despite my reassurances that I loved it (which I really did) - so I gently calmed him down and led him to the couch. Sexy times could wait till later; my mate’s well-being came first. And besides, my doctor's bag contained some definitely non-medical items for our evening in.  
   
As it was nearly noon, I sent a request down to Mrs. Singer to ask if she could produce one of her wonderful late breakfasts, with extra bacon for Sherlock. She, miracle-worker that she was, sent back that she had one already started (bless the woman!), and that it would be ready in under half an hour. That gave me time to calm my love down and to find out exactly what his brother had done to upset him _this time_.  
   
Sherlock drew a deep breath.  
   
“Bacchus wishes me to investigate a diplomatically sensitive case concerning a coiner”, he said at last.  
   
I nodded, though I did not see why such a request would have upset him so much.  
   
“What else has happened?” I asked gently.  
   
He looked up at me, and I could see that he was close to tears.  
   
“Mother and Father were away in Scotland all last month”, he said. “Whilst they were gone, they left Mycroft in charge of the house. He had my bedroom completely repainted, and threw out everything that I had in there. It was only memories, but……”  
   
I bit back my anger, wanting nothing more than to hunt down Mr. Mycroft Holmes and make him pay for such a foul act of wanton cruelty. Sherlock had not had that room changed since he had been twelve years of age, and I knew how much he loved knowing it was still there, a reminder that he was truly family despite everything. Now it was gone, destroyed by his own brother.  
   
“Mother is absolutely furious!” Sherlock said with a watery smile. “She has told him that the room will be returned to _exactly_ the way I had it, and ordered Father to hunt down all the things that were thrown out. She had deducted the cost of everything from Mycroft's allowance, and banned him from the house for three months. Rachel is far from happy with him as well.”

“He deserves everything that he gets!” I growled. “Whatever he may think of you and your life choices, his actions were indefensible.”  
   
My friend smiled up at me. Physically he was only a little shorter than myself, but at times of stress he tended to curl up into himself, and I could more easily wrap my larger frame around his smaller one. We stayed sitting there until the bell rang, signifying the imminent arrival of our breakfast-come-dinner.  
   
+~+~+

Sherlock's eyes widened as he saw what I was taking out my bag, and his already impressive erection somehow managed to increase still further. It was something that looked at first like an erect and very long rubber condom, except that it had a lock-cap at the open end.

“Is..... is that what I think it is?” he asked, softly.

“It is”, I said, blushing. “I saw it in a, um, magazine the other week, and ordered it from “That Shop”. I collected it this morning.”

(I had chosen that method of delivery because the idea of our elderly postman Bert accidentally opening the parcel, and my having to explain to his widow as to why he had died of a heart-attack.... er, no!).

He stared at me incredulously. The ORMEROD (Over-time Release MEchanistic ROD) was basically an ultra-thin rubber condom, which a man could wrap around his cock before pleasuring his male lover. Once he had come, he would withdraw his cock but leave the rod inside his lover. The base would then be locked, and the seed would spill out every time the lover moved, through tiny holes along its length. It was more than enough for any man to take, except that of course that the refined and staid Victorians, who were in truth anything but, would often add other things first, such as ginger. Only a complete sadist would agree to have such a thing inside of them.

I held up the small vial of ginger that I had purchased from the grocery store (nothing was secret these days; the shop assistant had openly smirked at me!), and he gasped.

“John!”

“I want this”, I said firmly. “I want you, Sherlock. I want to feel you inside me all day tomorrow. I love you.”

He looked almost ready to break down in tears at my actions, but instead guided me down on the bed, and most graciously allowed me to give him a most thorough blow-job before starting to prepare me. He lined the rod with some ginger before rolling it over his cock and inserting the whole thing inside of me. I moaned in ecstasy, but when he hesitated it changed to a growl, and had I been capable of movement I would have pulled him inside of me.

“Patience is a virtue, beloved!” he teased. Had I been capable of those tricky things called words I would doubtless have managed a cutting reply, but I had to settle for another moan as he bottomed out, his own moans at the sensitivity of the spice rubbing against his erection cutting across mine. Thank the Lord that our rooms were so isolated from everyone else's at 221B!

It felt odd to feel him come like this, muffled by the rubber as he was and with the ginger yet to make its presence felt. He eased gently out, keeping me raised up so that his come could not follow, and added a copious amount of ginger before sealing the rod shut. Then, using that inhuman strength of his, he gently slipped under me whilst moving my shattered body on top of his own, supporting my greater weight with ease.

“I love you so much”, he whispered to me once we were under the sheets together. “I know I do not tell you that often enough, John, but you are my life. You are my very reason for being. Thank you so much.”

I smiled into his shoulder, barely noticing the heat being generated inside of me. Besides, I had something much hotter, for which I would be eternally grateful.  
   
+~+~+  
   
“The case is a rather odd one”, Sherlock said the following morning. Mrs. Singer’s crispy bacon had worked its magic, and we had cuddled (I am not ashamed to admit that, in the circumstances) for the best part of an hour before he had felt ready to discuss the case that his irritating brother had brought, along with the news of his family problems. “It concerns three houses along East Smithfield, near both the Royal Mint and the Tower itself; numbers 97, 99 and 101.”  
   
I nodded, and even that simple action caused the rod inside of me to shift slightly. I had made the mistake of sitting down whilst washing that morning, and the resultant surge of spice had made me come almost at once. Now my eyes watered again; just how much ginger had Sherlock put inside that thing?  
   
“Number 97 is home to Mr. Dorin Albu, one of the most prominent Rumanians living in our capital city”, Sherlock said, his eyes twinkling at my distress. “He is the reason behind the diplomacy element; the position of his country in the forthcoming European conflict is as yet unclear, so we do not wish to upset him if we can avoid it. Unless of course he turns out to be the guilty party, in which case Bacchus will be _really_ annoyed.”  
   
I silently hoped for just such an outcome. I did not venture to risk a nod, though.  
   
“Number 99 is most probably the scene of the coiner’s operations”, Sherlock went on, a most unbecoming smirk on his handsome features. “Unfortunately the house is split into three parts, and each is occupied by a potential suspect. In the basement we have Mr. Robin Trent, a clerk in his early forties who works at the London City and Midland Bank in St. Paul’s. He has a rather dubious past; his wife died in somewhat suspicious circumstances, although nothing was ever proven. He benefited greatly from a life insurance policy that he had taken out on her just two months prior.”  
   
“And he works with money, so he would know how it is made”, I offered.  
   
“On the ground floor we have Mr. Sean Davies, single, thirty-two and with links to Irish nationalist groups. Who, of course, are always in want of money. He does casual labour here and there, and Bacchus thinks that the amount that he spends is more than can be accounted for by such an existence.”  
   
I nodded, then winced. “The first floor?” I gasped.  
   
“Occupied by the Marklands, a newly-married couple recently arrived from the United States”, Sherlock said, grinning at my evident discomfiture. “Mr. Jehu Markland owns two businesses, which he purchased shortly after coming here but does not take any part in the running of. His wife Carly is pregnant with their first child.”  
   
“They must have had money to be able to afford to buy a whole business, let alone two”, I said.  
   
“An inheritance from an English relative”, Sherlock said. “Or so they claim. Bacchus is investigating that, but the foreign connection means that it may take some time.”  
   
“And number 101?” I asked.  
   
“It is owned by a middle-aged man called Mr. Sebastian Gold”, Sherlock said. “Forty-five and separated from his wife, though according to the divorce petition that he is undertaking and that she is not contesting, it was because of her behaviour, not his. It was his brother Sylvester, visiting at the time, who reported the suspicious goings-on next door to his home.”  
   
“What sort of goings-on?” I asked.  
   
“Strange smells in the basement, which adjoins Mr. Gold’s own”, Sherlock said. “He suspected at first that it was something wrong with the drains, but he claimed that he heard banging coming from next door, though he could not say from which floor. I suspect that one of the people in that street is a coiner.”

“I would have thought that there would be more money in faking notes, like the Carrs did”, I observed.

“In this case, I suspect that there may be a reason for that particular choice”, Sherlock said. “The problem will be in identifying which of the people is the coiner, and therefore the guilty party. A false accusation, especially if it involves Mr. Albu, could be disastrous.”

I nodded at that. The rod moved again, and my eyes watered.

“So I thought that we could drive over to the area right now, and see what we can see”, Sherlock said airily.

I stared at him in horror. East Smithfield had to be at least five miles away, and all that distance in a bumpy cab on London's crowded roads, with the rod assaulting my insides at every bump. He would not be so cruel.... would he?

“Tomorrow”, he added with a smirk. I pouted.

“That was mean!” I said accusingly.

“I think that your ginger will be all used up by dinner, based on the instruction booklet I read before you got up this morning”, he remarked. “But I could always add some more.”

No doubt about it, he was going to kill me through sex. Oh well, we all had to die some time!

+~+~+

The following day we made our way to East Smithfield, which turned out to be the main road leading east out of the City from the Tower itself. That ancient building always made my blood run cold, and I thought of the many people who had been done to death within its grim walls. It still loomed over the area, as it had for some eight centuries now, though I was pleased to see that Sir John Barry's recently-opened bascule/suspension bridge next to it seemed to be drawing as much as if not more attention. For once, a piece of modern architecture that I quite liked.

I had expected the area to be poor quality housing, as with much of the East End, but it turned out that numbers 81 through to 111 were a run of early Victorian houses at the Tower end of the road, bordered to the east by a rather ugly yellow-bricked factory. All the houses had clearly seen better days, and two had signs outside stating that they were 'To Let', one of which was number 95, next to the Rumanian diplomat's house.

The quality of the area was not at all improved by our having to meet Mr. Bacchus Holmes there, especially after the news that he had brought Sherlock the day before. Sherlock very pointedly held my hand as he approached, so tightly that it actually hurt, but I said nothing. He needed me right now, and I loved him enough to overlook a little pain. 

At least it was not where it had been yesterday!

“This is not good, Sher...lock”, Bacchus Holmes said, saving himself only narrowly by avoiding his brother's hated nickname. “The local police sent someone round just to check up on the house yesterday, and the idiot actually questioned our diplomat friend as well. The Rumanian ambassador has already put in a complaint.”

“Diplomats are regrettably if necessarily above the law”, Sherlock said, frowning, “but they cannot expect to not be questioned if a crime is taking place in their locality. “At least Mr. Sebastian Gold should be happy that we are investigating his complaint.”

“Far from it!” his brother groused. “He was all for letting the matter drop, but his brother Sylvester, who was only at the house for a few nights before sailing off to Ceylon or some such God-forsaken hole, complained about being kept awake during his brief stopover.”

“Where did Mr. Sylvester Gold sleep?” Sherlock asked. His brother looked surprised at the question, as was I.

“I cannot see what that has to do with anything”, he said. “But he did mention it in his statement. The basement; he has his own key, and his brother was not even aware that he was there until the day of his departure. Do you think....?”

“We need to see that basement”, Sherlock said firmly. “I assume that Mr. Sebastian Gold is at work. Does he keep servants in the house?”

“No”, his brother said. “He has a woman who comes in and does for him to keep the place clean, a Mrs. Barlow who lives just down the road in the flats. She comes in every morning at around eleven, but only does the basement when specifically asked. Why are you interested in that?”

Sherlock did not answer him, but checked his watch before hurrying over to number 101. Like all the houses it had two front entrances, a main one and a private one for the basement, accessed down a flight of stone steps behind a rusting iron railing. Sherlock hurried down and tried the door, then took something out of his pocket. His brother was barely into an objection before something clicked (it always worried me how good a lock-picker my friend could be when needed) and he all but ran into the room.

The basement room was much as expected, dirty and spectacularly ordinary. The three pieces of furniture were a bed, hard up against the left-hand wall, a dresser not far from it, and a wash-stand on the far wall that had clearly not been used for at least a couple of days. 

“Who lives in number 103?” Sherlock asked his brother.

“A family called the Thompsons”, his brother said. “But they are away visiting a relative in Scotland, and have been for the past three weeks. I checked that out. Their neighbour on the other side, a nosy old bat called Mrs. Smith, is keeping an eye on the place for them.”

“Interesting”, Sherlock said with a smile. “By the way, you did not tell me what Mr. Sebastian Gold does for a living?”

His questions were by this time clearly annoying his brother (which was all well and good!), but he still answered. 

“He works down in the docks”, he said. “He is a manager, with three clerks underneath him. Quite highly thought of, so they say.”

“Then the case is solved”, Sherlock said simply.

“How?” his brother asked at once. My friend smiled.

“Tomorrow you should send a team of men to search number 99 from top to bottom”, Sherlock told him. “You might inform the Rumanian ambassador, and for that matter the American one, of your plans a short while beforehand, in order that they do not get their feathers even more ruffled over their citizens being drawn into a criminal investigation.”

“And what are they looking for?” his brother asked.

“If I told you that, they might well find it”, Sherlock said crisply. “John and I are attending one of his surgery functions tomorrow evening, at Lady Hoveringham's house in Grosvenor Square, but if you care to meet us there, I shall be in a position to tell all.”

I quietly cheered when his brother had that look of intense frustration on his face at my friend's teasing. Though judging from the glare that I got as he left, not quietly enough.

Oh dear.

+~+~+

The following day was one of heavy rain, beating hard and fast against the Baker Street windows. Sherlock had gone out into the deluge (much against my wishes) in order to finalize his investigations, and when he came back he looked like a drowned rat. I hurried to get him out of those wet clothes – no, _not_ for that, or at least not this time – and soon had him dry, warm and relaxing in his dressing-gown, his permanently messy hair nestling against my thigh as he lay on the couch. This was sheer domesticated bliss, and I was the luckiest man ever to be experiencing it.

After a good dinner before leaving (Lady Hoveringham's events were renowned for small, fancy food 'portions' that always failed to fill one up), we dressed ourselves for the ordeal ahead. As usual we had to start at least an hour ahead of our planned departure time, as the sight of that beautiful man in formal clothes never failed to make me immediately want to get him out of them again, and I was almost hyperventilating as I dragged him back to his room and took him with a muffled roar, again thankful that we had such distant (and conveniently hard-of-hearing) co-tenants.

We left barely five minutes late (good for us), and made it to Hoveringham House to be greeted by Lady Hoveringham herself. She was the first of the evening to give Sherlock's body a long and most predatory look, and I moved instinctively closer to the man. Honestly, the woman was sixty, and married with four children! Though I also knew that Sherlock enjoyed it when I got jealous and/or possessive, and that it would add an edge to our love-making later that evening. Possibly even in an upstairs room here, if we could find an empty one, as I knew that my friend did not like her bullying husband Lord Cholmondeley Hoveringham one bit.

Unfortunately all that would have to wait, as Mr. Bacchus Holmes was already at the house when we arrived and clearly impatient to speak with us. Sherlock of course made sure to meet and greet all the important people first, brazenly ignoring his brother's foot-tapping and angry glares, before finally leading us away to a side-room where we could talk undisturbed. Or at least undisturbed by people; whoever had chosen the décor for this room had clearly thought that magenta, navy blue and off-yellow would work together. Whoever they were, they really needed to stop with the strange mushrooms.

“I had six officers search that house from top to bottom”, Mr. Bacchus Holmes groused, “and they found nothing worse than an erotic magazine in the possession of Mr. Jehu Markland. For which his wife gave him some gyp, but that apart, nothing, Sherlock. Sweet Fanny Adams!”

“That is good”, Sherlock said dryly. “That is pretty much what I expected you to find.”

His brother looked at him in shock.

“What?” he spluttered. 

“I wished you to make a fuss of searching that house because I wished the culprit in this matter to think themselves in the clear”, Sherlock said. “Today, in between dodging the Good Lord's attempt to recreate the great flood, I discovered two things about that person. Firstly, I found that they have an in-depth knowledge of numismatics. And secondly, I obtained proof that they have been creating false coin.”

“I still do not see why coins and not notes”, I put in. 

Sherlock gave his brother one of those knowing smiles which, I knew from experience, annoyed him mightily. Mr. Bacchus Holmes huffed impatiently. I may have effected a borderline smirk.

“I fully expected your men to find nothing at 99 East Smithfield”, he explained. “Indeed, had you handed over _all_ the information at your command rather than forcing me to go out in what turned out to be an apocalyptic downpour, I might have felt more inclined to help you. Take your men back to the area tomorrow, and search the house next door, number 101. Inside you will find a small coining apparatus, as well as sufficient chemicals to fake some of the most high-quality coins that I have ever had the pleasure of viewing.”

“How can you know that?” his brother demanded

“You withheld the small but critical fact that, whilst the company that employs Mr. Sebastian Gold does most of its business dealing in spices and related trade from the Far East, they run a most lucrative side-line”, Sherlock said. “For a price, they will ship small but highly-prized items, most usually stamps, books and coins, from anywhere along their routes. Transporting such items is a high-risk business; I believe that one particularly rare stamp recently sold for almost a quarter of a million pounds sterling, simply because of a minor printing error in its manufacture. And England is rich enough to have people who can afford not only to buy such items, but to pay for the best in shipping and security.”

“Mr. Sylvester Gold, the sailor?” I asked. Sherlock shook his head.

“Poor Mr. Sylvester is, in some ways, a victim here”, he said. “He has never worked for his brother’s company. Mr. Sebastian Gold, on the other hand, has acquired an in-depth knowledge of the coin-making process, and over doubtless many years has perfected the art of producing a near-perfect fake. Books and stamps are hard to copy, but a coin is so much easier, and the recipient, having paid so much, would assume at least initially that what they had had fetched from halfway round the world was precisely what it seemed. Mr. Sebastian Gold, meanwhile, was waiting for a valuable enough shipment that he could produce a fake copy of, and then abscond to a new life elsewhere in the world where he could purchase a new identity, no questions asked.”

“You are guessing, Sher!” his brother scoffed. 

Sherlock fixed him with an icy glare. I was sure that the temperature in the room suddenly fell by several degrees, and I wondered if there was going to be blood. Well, one could but hope.

“Sorry”, he said. “Sherlock.”

“Better!” my friend said heavily. “A sailor leads a somewhat irregular life, so naturally the brothers had an arrangement that Mr. Sylvester Gold – whom, I might add, knows nothing of his brother’s criminality – had a key to the basement, to use as and when he required. It was Mr. Sebastian Gold's bad luck that one such stopover occurred at precisely the time that he was using his tools to create the fake set of coins that, he hoped, would set him up for life. His brother's hammering woke our sailor up, but he mistakenly thought that the noise was coming from next door, as he could naturally think of no reason why his brother would be making such a noise. You will remember that Mr. Sylvester's bed was on the side of the wall adjoining number 99.”

“We would need proof for a second raid in the area”, Bacchus Holmes said dubiously.

“I thought that you might”, Sherlock said, “so I took the precaution of breaking into number 101 myself, earlier today. I retrieved a pair of Mr. Sebastian Gold’s cuffs.”

“His cuffs?” I asked, now totally confused.

Sherlock smiled, and took a set of somewhat dirty white cuffs from his pocket. Laying them out on the coffee-table, he then produced a small vinegar-bottle from his other pocket.

“Vinegar?” I asked, now even more totally confused. He shook his head.

“Sulphuric acid”, he said. “I obtained it from a scientist friend of mine.”

He applied the clear liquid liberally all over the cuffs, which at once began smoking gently and hissing. We both stared in puzzlement.

“The coining process creates minuscule zinc and copper filings”, Sherlock explained, “which shoot up when the fake coin is hammered out, and embed themselves in the skin and clothing of the coiner. Sulphuric acid reacts with zinc, as you can see. He wore these old cuffs as added protection to cover the area between the gloves and the skin, doubtless meaning to dispose of all once he was done. Unfortunately I had to flee before I could find the gloves, as the cleaner arrived early. I am sure that if you told a judge that, say, a pair of cuffs had fallen out of Mr. Sebastian Gold’s laundry and come into your possession, and you thereby had reason to suspect him guilty of creating false coin – well, our judiciary has a variable reputation at times, but I believe that you would get your warrant.”

He did. And soon after, he got Mr. Sebastian Gold, who instead of the incomparable wealth he had been angling for, got a lengthy spell at Her Majesty’s Pleasure. Indeed, he was fortunate that he got that, as creating false coin for currency usage was still a capital offence. Sherlock, very fairly in my opinion, sent the judge a letter stating that he believed the coins created had been for individual profit, not general circulation, and that surely helped to save the man's miserable neck.

+~+~+

We managed to find a small, unused bedroom in which we spent a pleasant couple of hours before we resumed the party, him with a smirk a mile wide and me with a cock-ring and a plug, and an even bigger smirk. Though the cab-ride back to Baker Street was…. uncomfortable.

All right, it was bloody agony! And I enjoyed every minute of it! Satisfied?

+~+~+

And next, the famous Abernetty case, involving the parsley that sank too far into the butter, a case where Sherlock proved more devious that even I could ever have believed!


End file.
